As a conventional electrophotographic technology, there is a technology which inserts a recording material between an image bearing member bearing a toner image thereon and a transfer roller and transfers the toner image on the image bearing member onto the recording material.
In this technology, U.S. Pat. No. 6,516,179 discloses how a recording material enters a transfer nip. An image forming apparatus described in this U.S. Pat. No. 6,516,179 has a guide member which guides the recording material toward a secondary transfer nip portion of an intermediate transfer belt. A leading end of the recording material is first brought into contact with the intermediate transfer belt by this guide member so that the recording material advances toward the secondary transfer nip along the intermediate transfer belt.
However, an advancing method of the recording material toward the secondary transfer nip such as one in the image forming apparatus in U.S. Pat. No. 6,516,179 may produce a phenomenon that the leading end portion of the recording material removes a toner image on the intermediate transfer belt in some cases. Further, removal of the toner image by the leading end portion of the recording material generates an image deficit. This image deficit hardly occurs when a sufficient margin is assured at an edge on the leading end side of the recording material, but this image deficit remarkably appears when a margin is small or when an image without a margin is formed.